Organization and Management Theory OMT

Social Media and Communication in the Workplace

Guest Editors

Charles Steinfield, Michigan State University, steinfie@msu.edu

Marleen Huysman, VU University Amsterdam, m.h.huysman@vu.nl

Paul Leonardi, Northwestern University, leonardi@northwestern.edu

Social media technologies have the potential to change important communication processes within organizations.

As social media proliferate, it seems likely that organizational members will use them to carry out socialization,

identification, collaboration, innovation, relationship development, persuasion, learning, social capital formation,

and knowledge sharing processes. The explosive growth of these technologies has not gone unnoticed by

communication and information scholars, as evidenced by the equally rapid growth in articles related to the uses

and impacts of social media, including a prior special issue on social network sites here in JCMC (vol. 13, no. 1,

2007). Much of this prior work has been conducted among student populations or in the context of advertising and

marketing, and, as such, has not focused on social media use in organizations. Studies that do take the

organization into account, generally relate to such fields as information systems marketing, and strategic

management, with the aim of understanding how social media can be leveraged to enhance business

performance. Less well studied, however, is the influence of social media on a range of organizational

communication processes  within workplace contexts.

Focus of the Special Issue

We invite submissions to a special issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication focusing on

research on social media within the organizational context. Our aim is to highlight research that explores  how the

affordances of social media interact with organizational contexts, behaviors, and communication

practices to influence processes of interest to organizational scholars.

We are interested in submissions that enable us to better understand how social media affordances make a

difference in workplace settings. Affordances are the result of the intertwining of capabilities provided by the

technologies and the actions taken by the actors using them. Papers are especially welcome that integrate the

material aspects of the technology with its use in organizational communication processes. Submissions that

focus on such topics as the role of social media in attracting customers or influencing sales will be given less

priority as these topics are extensively covered in other outlets.

We are intentionally not providing a definition of social media in this call for papers, but ask authors to do so within

their manuscripts. We encourage authors to be explicit about what it is about the media they are studying that

makes them "social" and to provide definitions that are robust enough to endure over time.

We encourage diverse methodological approaches, including both qualitative and quantitative studies. Conceptual

papers as well as empirical studies are welcome. All papers must be theoretically motivated.

Submission Process and Author Guidelines

Papers will undergo an initial screening by the three special issue editors in an accelerated review process. A set

of selected papers will then be invited for submission to the JCMC system and will undergo a formal review led by

the special issue editors in conjunction with JCMC reviewers.

Submissions should follow JCMC formatting guidelines available at the journal site

(http://www.wiley.com/bw/submit.asp?ref=1083-6101) and should be sent via email to the special issue editors by

 February 1, 2012. Initial screening decisions will be completed by March 15, 2012, and selected papers must be

submitted to the JCMC system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcmc by April 15, 2012. Final acceptance